


ONLY THE ROSES KNOW! ( minsung oneshot )

by ramkingvevo



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: BoyxBoy, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Established Relationship, Flowers, Gay Character, Gay Love, Gay Male Character, Gay Romance, Han Jisung | Han - Freeform, Homosexuality, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kpop fanfic, Kpop fanfiction - Freeform, Kpop idols - Freeform, Lee Minho | Lee Know - Freeform, Love, M/M, Male Homosexuality, MalexMale, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Nature, Neurodivergent Lee Minho, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Relationship(s), Romance, Slice of Life, Teenagers, Therapy, Triggers, kpop, minsung - Freeform, slight homophobia, stray kids - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 20:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20954297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramkingvevo/pseuds/ramkingvevo
Summary: ❝ I STILL LOVE YOU, EVEN AT YOUR WORST. . . ❞Minho struggles with psychosis, leading to periodic outbursts and episodes of anger and frustration. Jisung struggles to find the boy that he loves behind the mask of a monster. . .[complete]― originally posted on wattpad !





	ONLY THE ROSES KNOW! ( minsung oneshot )

**Author's Note:**

> ― opinions and constructive criticism are always welcome, so please feel free to leave me a comment!

Jisung sat in Minho's bedroom, the side of his head resting against the window as raindrops fell steadily from the sky overhead. Downstairs, he could hear his boyfriend yelling aloud to himself, speaking nonsense the way that he always did when he went through a bout of emotional and mental overload. The younger boy breathed in deeply, telling himself that panicking and falling into a hyperventilating mess of anxiety on the floor would do no good at all, so he inhaled sharply, attempting to keep his lungs inflating and deflating at a reasonable and rationalized pace. Crying would do no good either, and Jisung knew that very well, so he brought his dominant hand up and wiped away the few stray tears that had dared to spill over his bottom row of eyelashes.

He would leave the waterworks to the clouds, because the rainfall was productive in many ways, whilst his own tears would do nothing more than cause moisture to be removed from his body. There was no point in crying over spilled milk, so Jisung refused to do so.

The sound of shattering glass broke through the atmosphere, and the young male upstairs internally cringed at the noise that was far too familiar for his liking. What was it this time? Another picture frame? A flower vase? Another one of his mother's glass figurines?

Then, there was silence. Minho had finally stopped speaking, and he was no longer lost within a chaotic whirlwind of anger and despair. Finally, his mind had come back to him properly, and he felt as if he could finally operate on a human level once again. His normalcy had returned, and the part of him that reared its ugly head every now and again had finally gone away. For the time being, at least.

Jisung pushed himself up and onto his feet, counting off the seconds before he dared to unlock the bedroom door and exit into the small hallway that would lead him to the stairs. _Ten, __nine__ eight_. . . When Minho got that way, the younger male had learned to simply stay out of his way. _Seven, six, __five_. . . It wasn't the older boy's fault anyway. _Four, three, __two__, one_. . .

The medicine was to blame.

"Minho?" Jisung called out to his lover softly, hoping not to startle the taller boy and make him feel threatened somehow.

From the bottom of the staircase, the older male stared up at the younger, his body shaking slightly as blood trickled down his right hand. Jisung's eyes widened at the sight of his boyfriend's injury, but he somehow managed to keep himself together for Minho's sake.

"I tried to clean it up," the taller male choked out, and Jisung winced at the drop of that horrid red substance that detached itself from Minho's skin and fell to the ground like the rain outside the window.

That was precisely why Jisung couldn't ever bring himself to hate the older boy. As loud and as cruel as he could be at times, Minho always tried his best to clean up after himself, even if it left his hands covered in scars. . .

"What did you break?" The shorter male asked as he made his way down the stairs.

He didn't get a response to his question, but as it turned out, one wasn't needed anyway. The distinct scent of hard whiskey took over Jisung's senses, filling his nostrils with a burning feeling and his mind with a hazy, intoxicated sensation. Minho didn't drink, as he was only eighteen and therefore still under the age to do so legally, but his father wasn't sober in the slightest. After his son was diagnosed with a rare form of psychosis, the older boy's father distanced himself from the family. Most hours of the day, and even into the late night, Minho's father could be found in his office at his workplace.

In order to ensure that he would be working more often than not, he fired his secretary and took on all of her responsibilities for himself; -a choice in which he blatantly lied to his wife and son about. He insisted that the woman had simply stopped showing up for work, leaving him to do double the paperwork, which transcended into more hours at the office and less hours spent at home with his struggling son and working wife who also doubled as a homemaker.

But, on the rare occasions that Minho's father was at home with his family, he was always numbing his senses with whiskey, drowning his disappointments in the nasty liquid that could make him feel completely detached from his own reality if he swallowed enough of it.

"This might sting, but I'm doing it quickly so that it's over faster, okay?" Jisung stated, using his thumb and pointer finger to hold onto the shard of glass that was embedded in the palm of Minho's hand.

The older male didn't respond verbally. Instead, he nodded his head quickly before closing his eyes and looking away, because he couldn't stand the sight of watching the process be completed. Feeling it be done was more than enough to make his stomach churn. The shorter boy quickly pulled the shard out, and Minho yelped lightly at the sting that followed in its wake.

"Come on," Jisung said softly, ushering his boyfriend along and into the kitchen, avoiding the mess of shattered glass that resided to the left of the coffee table in Minho's living room.

"What have I told you about trying to clean things up like that? It's the third time this month, Minho. You have to be more careful."

He truly didn't mean to sound like he was attempting to parent his lover, but at the same time, it was clear that someone needed to take over that role. While Jisung was technically the younger of the two, there was no doubting that he was also the most emotionally mature, as well as the most mentally stable one of the duo. Minho was lovable and funny, and on his good days he could light up the world with his smile. . . But on the bad days, the monster lurking inside of him came out, and it sometimes turned Minho into a person that Jisung couldn't even recognize.

It was his face, and it was his body, but it just wasn't Minho in the slightest. When the monster came out, the older boy's eyes turned dark, and not even Jisung was safe from the destruction that it waged. Typically, it was nothing more than getting yelled at, which the younger male certainly didn't enjoy by any means, -but was also more than aware of the fact that it could have been much worse than that. Unlike typical relationships where the power dynamic is skewed somehow and one person gives too much while all the other does is take, Minho had true remorse for each and every thing that he'd ever done wrong. He regretted every word and action that had ever caused Jisung any shred of pain.

When he was in the proper state of mind, there was nothing in the universe that could make him even raise his voice towards the shorter boy. Minho had been completely and utterly infatuated with Jisung from the very first time that they'd ever met, all the way back during the latter's freshman year when he joined the set and costume design team for the drama club. From the very first time Minho saw him, with his sleeves rolled up and a glob of baby blue paint stuck to his plush cheek, the older boy had just known somehow that they were nothing short of kindred spirits.

Sadly, as they grew closer, Jisung began to see the parts of the taller male that weren't as pretty as he was. The parts that were unhinged, and callous, and sometimes so hurtful that the younger boy would cry about what he'd been told by them before he went to sleep at night. The scary parts of Minho that had grabbed his wrist last summer and squeezed it tightly; -not enough to leave marks or cause any long lasting damage, but enough to have caused Jisung pain within that very moment.

But Minho _didn't_ mean it. . .

_Minho never meant it_. . .

"I'm sorry," the taller male apologized softly, which were words that the shorter boy heard all too often, "I thought I could take care of it by myself for once."

As warm water from the kitchen sink's spicket washed away the pooling blood that had gathered and slightly congealed on Minho's palm, Jisung watched longingly as the red substance was sent spiraling down the drain in the same way he wished that the older boy's monster could be washed away by warm droplets of water.

Maybe if he took Minho outside and held his hand whilst the rain soaked them completely and chilled them to the very core, then that side of his lover would be washed away like blood, dirt, and sins. . .

"Don't think that way," Jisung forced himself to come back into reality, shutting the water off as he reached out for a couple of paper towels to use to compress Minho's fresh wound.

"We're a team. That's the thing about being in love. You're there for me, and I'm there for you. . . It's a balance," the younger male noted, peeling the paper towel back a bit in order to see the wound on Minho's hand a bit more clearly.

"We don't have a balance, Jisung," the taller boy stated sadly, "we both know that we don't. I put everything in your hands and I make you deal with it all because I'm too weak and too crazy to do anything by myself."

"Hey," Jisung stated sharply, "don't say things like that. You're _not weak_, and you're _not crazy_, Minho. Everyone has flaws, and you're doing your best to live with them. . . You might not always do it right, but I'll love you enough for the both of us until you can look in the mirror and feel proud of what you see."

_Jisung would love him until the end of time_. . .

_He would even love Minho's _  
_monster_. . .

.❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。

"How have you been?"

He was asked that question each time he stepped into that tiny room on the very top floor of the tallest building in their town, but somehow, Minho was never truly prepared for it, and he certainly wasn't ever prepared to answer it.

"I've been okay," the brunette stated, although he was hesitant in saying that, "for the most part, anyway."

"Just okay?" His therapist raised an eyebrow, a quizzical look crossing his sharp, intimidating features.

The man was scary, and Minho didn't particularly like him. Dr Kang was handsome, and undeniably so, with his neatly gelled hair and perfectly pressed dress shirt and pants, -but that didn't stop him from terrifying the patient that was sitting before him. He'd never inherently given Minho a reason to fear him, but once that boy made up his mind about someone; -then that was that. His father was irresponsible and untrustworthy, Han Jisung was angelic and heavenly, and Dr Kang was intimidating and frightening.

"Have you been taking your medication like we talked about? One pill every morning?" He was questioned further.

"Yes," Minho answered, "I haven't missed a day in a long time."

He was afraid of what would become of him if he were to do such a thing. He feared that he would be triggered by something and have a total blackout that would cause his anger to take control of his body and lead him to do things that he would regret for the rest of his life. Of course, the medication wasn't a fix-all type of situation. He'd been taking those specific ones for over half a year by that point, and the side effects had yet to fully disappear. They still made him nauseous on some occasions, and they still made him act out erratically at times.

Minho didn't think he'd ever be cured, and about that, he was correct. His problems would never go away; -_but neither would Jisung_. . .

"Have you had any incidents since the last time we spoke?"

_Of course I have_, Minho thought to himself bitterly, but didn't dare use such a tone when speaking aloud to Dr Kang,_ I'm crazy. I hurt people. . . That's all I'm good for_.

"Yes," he admitted, averting his gaze down to his sneakers, "one."

He didn't look up to meet Dr Kang's eyes because he knew that there would be disappointment there. As intimidating as he was, Minho wanted to please him, and he wanted to show him that he truly way trying his best at everything he was striving for. However, nothing had ever been easy for the brunette, and he wasn't expecting the treatment and management of his psychosis to be any different.

"What happened during the episode?" Dr Kang inquired, clicking the top of his pen as he prepared to write down things that Minho was going to describe to him.

His patient internally cringed at the sound.

"I don't remember everything," he said in a small voice, "but I know that I was yelling. My thoughts were spinning around in my head, telling me to do one thing and then telling me to do the complete opposite. I couldn't deal with the noise, so I broke a glass bottle to tell the voices to shut up. After the bottle shattered, the noise went away."

Minho wasn't stupid, and he certainly wasn't out of touch with himself or with reality by any means. At times, his coherence and perception of the world could become quite altered by the things repeating in his mind, but in an overall sense, Minho knew very well that he just wasn't normal by any stretch of the imagination. Jisung knew it too, but despite that, the younger male loved him anyway. From the shorter boy, he received unconditional and never ending love. . . Which was precisely why Minho hated himself so much for hurting the person that undoubtedly cared about him the most.

"Was there a reason why you had that specific episode? Any sort of trigger that you could pinpoint?"

"There might have been one," Minho stated, still keeping his eyes glued downward, "but I don't remember exactly what it was if there was one. All I know is that one minute I was sitting beside on Jisung on the couch, and the next moment I couldn't hear anything over the voices in my head. They were drowning everything out."

"If my memory serves me right," Dr Kang began as he flipped through the pages of Minho's records, "Jisung was there the last time that something similar to this took place, wasn't he?"

". . . maybe," the brunette shrugged his shoulders, "I don't really remember whether he was or not."

Once more, Minho certainly wasn't stupid. He understood very well what it was that Dr Kang was hinting at, and he didn't appreciate that type of inference. Just as well, he'd long since thought that his therapist was at least a bit homophobic, because during the session in which Minho had admitted to being gay and having a male lover, Dr Kang had looked at him rather strangely; -although he didn't necessarily speak anything negative aloud. Really though, he didn't even need to. The look on his face that was undeniably one of disgust and judgement told his patient everything that he needed to know.

"Have you considered that he may be a trigger for you in some way? Maybe it's something he does, or how he says something, or even-"

"No," Minho cut Dr Kang off, refusing to hear anymore of that garbage that he was spewing out of his mouth, "Jisung doesn't have anything to do with it. We met during my sophomore year, and I was having episodes when I was a freshman, which was over a year before we ever even saw each other for the first time."

"Still, he could very well be exacerbating the underlying problems that you're facing," Dr Kang noted.

"That's not true. If anything, he helps me calm down and brings me back to feeling like myself again," Minho stated, refusing to acknowledge anything other than that as a fact.

He was self-aware, and he knew that Jisung had absolutely nothing to do with his issues. He was born with problems that hadn't been acknowledged until his later years of adolescence due to his parents, as well as his entire country's, stance on and stigma towards mental health problems. It was a sad reality for people who were struggling in the same manner as he was, but that reality had nothing to do with Jisung's presence in his life, and Minho was sure of that.

From there, his session went along in a rather drawn-out way. Typical questions were asked, he gave the usual answers with a few new details here and there, and in the end, nothing new came of it. It was always the same, so Minho wasn't at all surprised by that. When his hour was up, he wasted no time in rushing out of the office and hurrying to meet Jisung, who was sitting patiently, playing a puzzle game on his phone in the waiting room.

His eyes glistened and softened when he saw his lover, and he immediately turned his phone off and climbed to his feet, walking over to lace his fingers with Minho's tightly.

"How did it go?" He asked, his thumb running along the side of the older male's hand.

"I think that I should request to switch to another therapist," the taller boy said bluntly.

"I've been going to see Dr Kang for over a year, and all he's done is run me in circles. I feel like I'm still at the beginning, and it shouldn't be this way. Not to mention the fact that I really don't think he likes that I'm gay, and he was even trying to tell me that you're the reason I'm having episodes."

"He said it's because of _me_?" Jisung questioned as his heart sank lower into the pit of his stomach.

"I know, can you even believe that bullshit? He's never even met you, and yet he's just assuming that it's your fault because I'm with you instead of with a girl. I mean, he didn't _say that_, but it was pretty easy to tell what he was thinking. He's not trying to help me get better, he's trying to turn me straight," Minho stated, that fire of rage still burning within his gut.

"If you feel that way, it might be better for you to switch to quoted therapist," Jisung noted.

"You getting to a place where you feel well is what's most important here."

_But maybe Dr Kang is right_, the younger boy thought to himself, _maybe Minho won't ever be on the right track while I'm here in his life_. . .

.❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。

The more Jisung thought about things, the worse he came to feel. He wanted nothing more for Minho than all the happiness in the universe, but it seemed that the shorter male was keeping him from that; -even if it was unintentional. Jisung loved his boyfriend with every last fiber of his being, but he came to realize that his love meant nothing if it would equal the suffering of the person he claimed to care so deeply for.

Unlike what Minho's therapist had been suggesting, -that the older male was having episodes of intense emotional outbursts because of his sexual orientation-, Jisung had come to the conclusion that it was _him _who was causing his lover such problems. Not specifically his attraction to the same sex, but rather, his attraction to Jisung in specific.

Even in present circumstances where in which the older boy had his head resting in the younger male's lap as they spent time basking in one another's presence as a loving couple, Jisung couldn't stop the guilt from crawling up his throat.

"Minho," he said the taller male's name with hesitancy lacing his tone, "how do you feel right now?"

The older boy's chocolate eyes flickered upward as they met Jisung's, and the shorter male's heart skipped a beat.

"How do I feel?" He mirrored the question before answering it properly.

"Fine, right now. Happy, and warm, and. . . Loved. I always feel like I'm at my best when you're with me."

"So then. . . You don't feel angry? Or upset at all? Not even a little?" Jisung questioned, watching as confusion clouded Minho's affectionate gaze.

"No, not at all," he replied honestly.

"I feel calm, actually. I hate when I freak out in front of you, because you don't deserve to have to see me like that, and you don't deserve me yelling at you just because I'm not in a sound place emotionally. It's not fair, and I know that. I. . . I wish that I could kill the part of myself that hurts you."

"You don't need to say things like that," Jisung assured, "I know that you don't mean to yell and be mean like you are sometimes. It's not your fault, and I understand that. You're working on it, and you're getting help, and I can tell that you're trying so, so hard. That shows me everything I need to see, and I'm proud of you always."

"Always?" Minho questioned.

"Even though I yell at you? Even though I don't treat you like you deserve to be treated? Even though I-"

"Stop," Jisung cut his boyfriend's words off mid-sentence, "I love you. You're not perfect, but nobody is, Minho. Even if I cry every so often about something you've said, I know that you never mean it, and you always say that you're sorry."

"Every abusive boyfriend says that they're sorry," the older boy stated, tears welling in his eyes as he sat up on the couch.

"That's how they keep their victims around. They apologize, even though they never mean it, and they buy them flowers and chocolate to patch things up during the times that they feel good. And then the next time it happens, the same things happen again; -they get mad, they hurt people, they say that they're sorry and yet they do it all over again! Just like I do!"

"It's not like that with us, Minho," Jisung stated firmly.

"This situation isn't black and white! There's grey areas that we both need to work on fixing, and we can do those things _together_. You're not abusive, Minho, you just get out of control sometimes, and you can't leave control your emotions. You're still a teenager, so your hormones are out of balance a lot of the time, and that has an effect on these types of things!"

"Stop defending me," the older boy insisted.

"I hurt you over and over again, and you know that that's true. I hurt you and then I apologize and I just expect everything to be okay again! I hate myself, Jisung! I hate the way that I act, and the way that I am, and the way that I feel, and the way that I look! Everything about me is disgusting, and I don't deserve anyone, nonetheless someone like you!"

"Calm down," the younger male pleaded, reaching out for his boyfriend's hand, but decidedly stopping right before their skin came into contact with one another's.

"You can't even touch me," Minho's voice cracked as desperate tears made their way down his cheeks.

Jisung hated to see the taller male in such a state, and he hated it even more so in that particular moment because he felt as if he was the cause of it.

"You're afraid that I'll hurt you, so you won't even touch me. How can you possibly say that I don't hurt you when we both know that I do?"

Jisung moved forward, pressing his own pair of lips roughly to Minho's, shocking the older boy a great deal. The younger's left hand went up as he buried his fingers within his lover's brown strands of soft hair, keeping a grip on them that was firm, but not enough to cause any sort of pain. His right hand found his way to Minho's, and he held his boyfriend's hand tightly just as he'd intended to from the start.

He'd stopped himself from doing so not because he was scared of his lover, but because he didn't want to make Minho feel physically stressed. Jisung wanted to make him happy. . .

"Listen to me," the shorter boy demanded.

"I love you. I don't care what anyone else has to say about it; -because these are _my __feelings_, and nobody can tell me that I'm wrong for them. I'm not afraid of you, Minho. I'm not even afraid of you when you get a little crazy, because even in times like that, I know you'll never hurt me. . . These things you do sometimes, they're scary, and I won't lie about that; -but that's not _you_. That's a _part __of__ you_, and it's something that we'll work on. We'll pay closer attention, and we'll figure out what sets you off. No matter what happens from here on out, I'll be right here beside of you. I've been here since you got your diagnosis, and I'll hold your hand every step of the way through treatment. This isn't something that you need to face on your own anymore."

Breathing out slowly, Minho's tears mostly dissipated. He'd never believed that a mortal human being could ever have the power of the universe at their fingertips, but Han Jisung most certainly did. Jisung held the answers to all the mysteries of the universe inside of his chest, and magic could be tasted on his lips and tongue. Stardust was scattered across his skin, the Northern Lights took their place along his pupils, and oceans resided in his soul.

Jisung was, without a doubt, Minho's saving grace, and maybe, -just maybe-, he'd be able to slay the monster inside of him.


End file.
